(Chicago Sun Times) — The CTA started making nonunion workers take furlough days and unpaid holidays back in 2009, to cut costs as tax revenues plunged. But while salaries have fallen, one category that’s up on the CTA payroll is “vacation buyback.” Under the CTA’s buyback policy, a worker can choose not to take up […]
(Chicago Sun Times) — The CTA paid more than $1.9 million in overtime to bus drivers in the four months following the February service cuts — 62 percent more than it paid for an average four-month period in 2009, according to CTA records. “That’s how they’re compensating for the people they laid off,” said Carlos […]
Even in a time of belt-tightening and dreams deferred, a long-sought CTA project is in the works, offering the promise of improved transportation and economic rebirth for poorly servedChicago communities. In the late 1960s, when the CTA Red Line was extended south along the middle of the Dan Ryan Expressway to 95th Street, the plan never […]
(Chicago Sun Times) — Joel Jackson and his young daughter Bridget, wearing a polar bear T-shirt, boarded a CTA bus near Chicago Union Station at 11:45 a.m., expecting to arrive at Lincoln Park Zoo at 12:10 p.m. That’s the weekday timetable provided by the Regional Transportation Authority trip-planner on the CTA Web site. Twenty-five minutes to travel three […]
(Chicago Sun Times) — Vanessa Garrett loved driving the 79th Street bus for the CTA — she thought this was the job she’d retire from. But Feb. 7 Garrett became one of 1,057 CTA workers who lost their jobs when the agency cut service on bus and L routes to fill a budget hole caused by […]
(Chicago Tribune) — The new CTA rail cars undergoing testing have been removed from service temporarily for repairs to fix a potential problem with the brakes, transit officials said Thursday. Vibrations were affecting a component in the braking system, CTA engineers found. The vibrations could possibly cause the “slack adjuster” in the brake to loosen and […]